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Germany Warns Windows 8 is Dangerous – Is Microsoft a Giant Short?

I reported that Windows 8 was dangerous. Some wrote to argue I was wrong. I wrote why NASA announced it was dumping Windows 8 and that even Skype should not be used. Microsoft has been criticized for the Prism affair. Now appears that Windows 8 is especially dangerous. The German government warns against Microsoft program because it has the ability to control the hardware and software of the computer. The NSA can enter you computer remotely. Has Microsoft created economic suicide?

Many laptops are now pre-installed with Windows 8 sold or delivered. The new program from Microsoft is not very successful, but is heavily promoted. Even companies that German authorities and the federal government, for example, will gradually work with this operating system. But here there are significant security vulnerabilities.

To warn IT experts before the federal program and refer to it as dangerous. There was a gap in Windows 8, which is a high security risk, reports the time with reference to documents of the Federation. This refers to the so-called Trusted Computing. A technology with about Microsoft may access the hardware and software of the computer operated with Windows 8. And thus the NSA, finally there is a very close cooperation between them ( here ).

In the document in which the IT experts of the Federal warn of the vulnerabilities of Windows 8, it says in part: “Due to the loss of full sovereignty over information technology” would be “the security objectives ‘confidentiality’ and ‘integrity’ no longer would ensure t . use the ‘Trusted Computing’ technique in this form (…) “For this reason was” not acceptable to the federal government and the operators of critical infrastructure. ”

In any laptop, any computer is using Windows 8 a “Aufpasserchip called, trusted computing modules’ (TPM) can be integrated,” warns the cryptographer and security researcher Rüdiger Weis in a conversation with netzpolitik.org :

“Together with the method now implemented by Microsoft within Windows 8 (in particular, secure boot), the user is largely beyond the control of its own hardware and software. It reminds fatal to an electronic ankle bracelet. For example, asked about the network can be approved only if software is running., The end of personal computers and smartphones. It sounds like a dream for runaway intelligence agencies and repressive states. (…)

Explosive, for example, the fact that the secret key generated during the manufacturing process, external to the chip and then transferred into the chip. Here it is trivial to produce a copy of all keys. It is not excluded that such laws exist and this must not be reported. The TPM chip is a dream for the NSA. Also, the other realistic scenario is that the TPM manufacturers do not sit in the range of the NSA but in China, can not really calm down. ”

In this context, the new information about the extent of spying by the NSA also of importance. Between employees of the NSA, the Government and employees of companies that cooperate with the secret, revealed that the Internet surveillance was much more extensive and, as previously thought.

Thus, the system of the NSA disponer the ability to listen to and store, for example, about 75 percent of the Internet traffic in the U.S., reports the WSJ . More than twelve Internet nodes of the USA to access the data.

This is not negligible even for Germany. The federal government made ​​in response to a request of the SPD to point out that although the alleged wiretaps were legal in Germany. But there are some cases where the communication is purely out in Germany yet passed over the country. It is at this point can then, for example, the foreign intelligence agencies to access it - regardless of German law.

Can access the question of which way secret knowledge of the Federal Government outside of Germany on communication data, answers the federal government:

“For Internet communication for the transmission of data is not necessarily the shortest path is chosen, a geographically much longer route can be quite attractive to an Internet service provider due to lower financial costs. Such a transmission outside the Federal Republic of Germany is not ruled out even if intra-German communication. As a result, this means that even with intra-German communication, access to networks or servers abroad, over which the transmission takes place, can not be excluded. “